West
by OceanTiger13
Summary: Spock and Uhura wander through the rubble, taking down hijackers. Bones carries a shotgun at all times, guarding his daughter in their tiny shack by the road. Jim just wanders. A pair of oneshots in a post-apocalyptic AU, inspired by The Book of Eli.
1. Jim and Bones

**West**

Jim and Bones

The young man focused on the horizon, fixated on the tiny shack in the distance, about a mile down the dusty road. He pressed his hand over the gash in his side, his every breath sharp and painful. He had stopped bleeding, but night was falling fast, and he needed a place to clean the wound.

He grimaced as music played softly in his ears, from frayed and taped ear buds connected to the tiny, ancient blue ipod in his pocket:

_One is the loneliest number that you'll ever know…_

_Two can be as bad as one, but it's the loneliest number since the number one, oh…_

The young man felt the wind pick up behind him, ruffling his short, sandy hair. He pulled his hood up and his scarf over his mouth, pushing his dark aviators further up his nose. You never knew what kind of stuff blew in on the wind.

He pulled his ipod out of his pocket, checking the battery life—low.

Despite himself, the young man smiled.

Because now he had something to do.

* * *

He arrived at the shack as the sun was setting and walked up to the door, pulling the hood off his head, keeping his hand close to the knife in his belt. He slowly pushed the door open.

To his right, he heard the sharp click of a loaded weapon and turned to find himself staring down the barrel of a shotgun.

The man on the other end held the weapon with shaking hands and said, in a Georgia accent, "Take one step forward and I'll put a hole in your skull."

The young man stepped back, putting his hands up above his head.

"Take it easy," he said, voice calm. "It's all right."

The man holding the gun was breathing slowly, gripping the weapon so tight his knuckles were white. His dark eyes were wide.

"It's fine," the young man said, "I'm not here to hurt anybody. Take it easy." The young man studied the other man's face, the scared, wild look in his eyes. He took another step backward, slowly reaching to his face to remove his sunglasses, then putting his hands up above his head. "You got a name?" he asked, "Mine's Jim Kirk."

The other man's lips tightened and he took a short, jerky step forward, silent.

Jim scared at him. The man had brown hair, cut short, close to his skull. He wore a heavy gray coat, black jeans, and boots. He looked to be in his thirties.

That was when Jim noticed the kid peering out from behind the man, also bristly-haired, hanging onto a fold of the man's jacket, wide-eyed and silent.

Jim took another step backward and winced as pain shot through his side, but kept his hands up.

The man noticed the dark stain on Jim's jacket.

"Get that from a hijacker?" he asked, nodding at the wound.

"Three," Jim answered.

The man was silent for a moment more, then slowly started to lower the shotgun.

As soon as the barrel was pointing at the ground, Jim put his hands to his sides.

The man turned to the kid, putting an arm around the kid's shoulders. "Go on inside," he told the kid, softly, keeping a wary eye on Jim. "Okay, darlin'? Get out some cans for dinner. I'll be in in a minute, okay? Go on."

The kid went inside.

"Your son?" Jim asked.

"My daughter," the man replied.

Jim cocked his head to one side, but said nothing. Kids were too thin to tell apart anymore.

There was silence for a moment, then the man asked, "You eat dog?"

"Anything I can get my hands on," Jim replied.

The man nodded. "Chihuahua it is."

They went inside.


	2. Nyota and Spock

Nyota and Spock

A man and a woman stood on the edge of a crumbling highway, both wrapped in scarves and sunglasses. The woman wore her long, dark hair up in a ponytail that twisted in the wind. The man wore a black beanie that covered the tips of his ears. What could be seen of his face was deathly pale.

They were looking at the road below, at the wreckage of a crashed plane, next to which sat a woman on the ground before a shopping cart, her blonde hair frizzy and sticking out in all directions. She was calling for help.

"A woman," the man remarked, tonelessly. "It is likely her accomplices shall be male."

His companion brushed a strand of hair from her face. "It doesn't necessarily mean that, Spock," she said, "let me go this time."

The man, Spock, shook his head. "In the past it has happened that traps such as these involve a group of male hijackers using a woman as a lure—"

"It could be anybody, Spock," the dark-haired woman interrupted him. "Let me go this time. I trust you to make the shot."

"I cannot allow you to do that," Spock took the rifle slung across his back and handed it to the dark-haired woman. He put a gentle hand on the back of her neck. "Nyota. If I were to miss, your fate would be worse than mine." He pressed a soft kiss to her cheek, then turned and started down the crumbling highway to the road.

Nyota's lips tightened with worry, but she too turned and took her place at the edge of the highway, loading the gun.

* * *

Spock walked to the edge of the highway and climbed nimbly down the rocks and debris to the dusty road, carved out of the barren by myriad weary feet, all traveling, all lost.

Spock stepped onto the road and began to approach the blonde woman and her cart.

The woman, looking toward the road, noticed him. "Thank heavens you're her," she called, her voice relieved, "Can you help me? The wheel came off—I can't get it back on." She gestured helplessly at the cart.

Spock paused for a moment, as if deliberating, and then nodded and started to walk slowly to her.

He knelt beside the woman, looking at the wheel of the cart held in the woman's hands.

"See, it's all bent and twisted," she said. "I need—"

"Keep your head down," Spock interrupted her.

"What?" the woman asked, frowning.

"Keep your head down," Spock repeated.

The woman's hand shook slightly. She stared at Spock, then licked her lips and turned back to the cart.

"When I tell you to," Spock said, "Do you understand?"

They fell silent for a moment, then the woman nodded.

* * *

Lying on her stomach at the edge of the highway, Nyota trained her eye on Spock and the blonde woman, the butt of her rifle resting against her shoulder, her finger wrapped around the trigger. She took deep breaths, waiting, watching Spock as he spoke to the woman.

Her heart was fluttering like a bird, as it always did before they sprung the trap. There were always those moments of doubt—wondering if she would make the shot, or if she would miss.

_Steady_.

* * *

Spock felt the hard, round edge of a gun at the back of his head, and a harder voice behind him: "Get your hands up, and don't move a muscle unless you want me to put a bullet in your head."

Spock's lips quirked in a barely perceptible smile as he slowly raised his hands over his head.

* * *

Nyota felt her breath catch in her throat as a man appeared behind Spock, putting a gun to his head. Two more appeared from behind the nose of the wrecked plane. Nyota imagined Spock's calm voice: "_I believe the phrase is, 'I told you so…'"_

Forcing herself to breathe, Nyota aimed the rifle at the man holding the gun to Spock's head.

* * *

Spock watched as two more men appeared before him, both carrying shotguns and aiming at his heart.

"Stand up," one of the men said. "Take off your pack."

Spock stood, shrugging off his backpack. The man behind him caught it and tossed it to one of the others, who began rifling through it. The man behind Spock put a hand on his shoulder and steered him away from the blonde woman and the cart, into the open.

Spock watched as the shotgun-toting man pulled out each of Spock's belongings, inspected them, then tossed them casually aside: his water bottle, his journal, his spare clothes, his sketches of Nyota.

Sighting the sketches, the man dropped the pack, holding his gun in the crook of his arm, whistling.

He looked up at Spock, holding up one of the sketches. "She's a pretty one," he said, grinning, displaying a mouth of missing and blackened teeth. "She yours?"

"She is no one's," Spock replied.

"She'd be a fun time," laughed his friend, who had a wide scar across his face.

The two men looked back down at the pictures.

Spock took a deep breath. Slowly, he turned to the blonde woman. "Madam," he said to her.

She looked up, wide-eyed.

"Hey, shut up," snarled the man behind Spock, pressing the gun hard into Spock's head, turning so that Spock could see his angry face, feel his breath. "You keep your trap shut." He turned back to the two shotgun-toters. "And you two! Quit fooling around and get on with it."

Spock met the blonde woman's eyes and, slowly, nodded.

The woman ducked beneath the shopping cart, and Spock parted middle and ring fingers, signaling.

One of the shotgun-toters glanced over at the blonde woman and laughed:

"Stupid bitch, what're you doing?"

Gunfire sounded in the road.

* * *

Nyota felt a rush of anger as the two shotgun-toting men started going through Spock's pack, dumping his things on the ground, then pulling out his sketches of her and leering at them.

_Spock, do the damn signal so we can be done with these bastards_, she thought furiously.

She took another deep breath, forcing her anger down. If she took the shot with a hot head she would miss.

_They're just scum. They'll be gone soon enough_.

She watched as Spock turned slightly to say something to the blonde woman behind the shopping cart. The man behind him stepped over to Spock's side, yelling.

Nyota's heart pounded, watching as the man turned to his two friends and shouted at them. Her eyes went back to Spock. He was facing the blonde woman again.

Nyota stared as Spock stood perfectly still, all but his head, which he inclined forward in—

_A nod? Was that a nod?_

Then she saw it—Spock's fingers parting in his traditional salute. The signal.

Nyota took aim and pulled the trigger.

* * *

On the ground, Spock acted immediately, turning and grabbing his captor's arm that held the gun and twisting him around in front of him like a shield as the man holding Spock's sketches dropped to the ground, a bullet in his temple. His friend cursed and fumbled with his shotgun before another shot caught him between the eyes, and slumped over, dead.

A third shot rang out, and the man's face contorted, twitching as he slumped to the ground.

Spock stepped away from him, looking up to the highway where Nyota now stood. He nodded to her, and she nodded back and started to walk down, disappearing from view.

Spock went to where the two hijackers lay dead and began to pick up his belongings, packing them carefully away into his backpack.

A minute passed, and Nyota appeared at his side, slinging the rifle over her shoulder.

"You ok?" she asked, putting a hand on Spock's shoulder.

Spock nodded. "And you?"

She nodded back.

From the cart, the blonde woman poked her head up, wide-eyed. "Who are you?" she asked in a whisper.

Nyota took Spock's hand as he put on his backpack. They started to walk away.

As they did, Nyota turned to face the blonde woman. "We're nobody," she said.

They kept walking, and the blonde woman disappeared from view.


End file.
